10 Reasons to use Design Thinking in your Business

Humankind has survived thus far because we
can work well together, communicate, empathize, anticipate, understand, and
exchange. Design Thinking is a reflection of these abilities. The culture
behind its practices, principles, and processes is potentially more empathetic,
human-centered, and courageous than business management.

The 10 reasons to use Design Thinking in
your business are:

01) DESIGN THINKING IS ACTION ORIENTED

It proposes a cross-disciplinary
learning-by-doing approach to problem solving. It allows us to accommodate
varied interests and abilities through hands-on and applied learning
experiences between individuals. A big part of Design Thinking is design doing.
It´s getting your hands dirty and experimenting instead of being an armchair
strategist.

02) DESIGN THINKING IS COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE

It is disruptive and provocative by nature
because it promotes new ways of looking problems. The strategic framing of
complex and ambiguous issues requires an approach free from organizational
dogmas, codified limitations, and old assumptions. A large part of Design
Thinking process is stepping out of conventional roles and escaping from
existing dogmas to explore new approaches to problem solving.

03) DESIGN THINKING IS HUMAN – CENTRIC –

It is always focused on the customer or
end user´s needs, including unarticulated, unmet, and unknown needs. To do
this, Design Thinking employs various observational and listening-based
research techniques to systematically learn about the needs, tasks, steps, and
milestones of a person´s process.

04) DESIGN
THINKING INTEGRATES FORESIGHT

Without an anticipatory, disciplined
imagination of the future, the strategic planning process is dead in the water.
Foresight opens up the future and invites us to explore uncertainties. It
encourages us to be comfortable with working with unknowns and expects us to
cope with inadequate information in the process of discovering and creating a
tangible outcome.

05) DESIGN
THINKING IS A DYNAMIC CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS

It is iterative. It requires ongoing
definition, redefinition, representation, assessment, and visualization. It is
a continuous learning experience arising out of a need to obtain and apply
insights to shifting goals. Here, prototyping, creating of tangible sharable
artifacts, becomes an important piece of the Design Thinking toolkit.

06) DESIGN THINKING PROMOTES EMPATHY

It puts users at the core of everything.
It encourages the use of tools to help us communicate with people in order to
better understand their behaviors, expectations, values, motivations, and the
needs that drive them and will improve their lives. We use these insights to
develop new knowledge through creative learning and experimentation.

07) DESIGN THINKING REDUCES RISKS

Whether it´s developing and launching a
new product or a service, there are many benefits in learning from small and
smart failures. This will always happen, but applied Design Thinking practices
helps reduce risks by considering all the factors in the development ecosystem,
including technology, the market, competitors, customers, and the supply chain.

08) DESIGN THINKING CREATE MEANING

PowerPoint and Excel spreadsheets are
limited in their ability to communicate insights or ideas. Creating meaning is
the hardest part of the design process, and the communication tools used in Design
Thinking – maps, models, sketches, and stories – help capture and express the
information required to form and socialize meaning. Arriving at this takes time
and emerges through multiple iterations and conversations.

09) DESIGN THINKING BRING ENTERPRISE CREATIVITY TO NEXT LEVEL

It fosters a culture that embraces
questioning, inspires frequent reflection in action, celebrates creativity,
embraces ambiguity, and creates visual sense making through interactions with
visualizations, physical objects, and people. A Design Thinking organization
creates strong “inspirationalization” and “sensibility” to give tangibility to
the emotional contract that employees have with organizations.

10) DESIGN THINKING IS THE NEW COMPETITIVE LOGIC OF BUSINESS STRATEGY

Design Thinking is the most complementary
practice that can be applied side by side with Michael Porter´s theory of
competitive strategy. It allows companies to create new products, experiences,
processes, and business models beyond simply what works. It turns them into
desirable products, which is a truly sustainable competitive advantage through
innovation.